Meridian tightens downtown parking, but signs may confuse

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MERIDIAN, Idaho (KBOI) -- Not everyone likes the more aggressive enforcement of a two-hour parking limit in the heart of Meridian's downtown business core.

"I think it sucks," said Meridian resident Chuck Weeks. "I think it's an inconvenience for everybody who works down here."

But Weeks admits he was usually parking for much longer than two hours at a time in one spot.

"Yes, I was," he said.

And now City Hall is putting up more two-hour parking limit signs, and marking tires to keep track.

It's in response to complaints from business owners, such as Rick Valenzuela, of Rick's Press Room Bar and Grill on East Idaho Street, who say too many cars park too many hours in front of their shops.

"We had people parking seven to eight hours at a time in one spot," said Valenzuela. "That makes it hard on a store-front business owner to have people come into their stores and do business in a timely manner. Nobody wants to park three blocks away to visit a smoke shop, restaurant, or insurance brokerage. Those are in-and-out businesses."

But there's one curious thing about the new two-hour parking signs that have been put up. If you look at them closely you can see they don't specify the hours of enforcement while the older parking signs specify between 8 am and 6 pm.

The Ada County Highway District made the new signs and says omitting the enforcement time was an internal mistake on its part.

ACHD says it will add enforcement times on the new signs, if there's too much confusion.